


I wanna hold you when I'm not supposed to

by neveranygoodupthere



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Break Up, D/s, Dom!Kris Letang, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Herefortheride!Claude Giroux, Incompatible Kink, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Polyamory Negotiations, Sub!Sidney Crosby, emotional stupidty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 05:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15112547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveranygoodupthere/pseuds/neveranygoodupthere
Summary: In the beginning, it’s more beautiful than he could imagine. It’s not until it’s over that he can look back and see the cracks.





	I wanna hold you when I'm not supposed to

**Author's Note:**

  * For [remiges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/remiges/gifts).



> For remiges! Thanks for the prompts. I latched onto "incompatible kinks" and then wrote way too much and yet not enough.

**Part One**

Later, Claude will learn that Sid and Kris first got together at a sex club in New York. An anonymous, upscale place where everyone wears masks of different colors to indicate what they’re into. They never take Claude there, and he doesn’t ask to go. But when they’re in the city for a game and things are tense between them, or their play isn’t clicking, or it’s a special occasion, they make their way back to their first hook up spot. Kris always tells Claude about it in detail afterward.

Later, because he asks, Claude tells Sid of that night in April 2012 when he found Kris, still Letang then, at his door late at night, looking beat to hell but with hes eyes blazing. He tells Sid how they didn’t speak more than ten words to each other the whole night, and in the morning they both had more bruises on them. Claude apologizes to Sid when the telling is done, surprised and guilty that he didn’t already know the story. He figured at some point he and Kris would have discussed it, especially considering Kris and Sid were doing their own thing during that time too. But Sid just smiles and says, “Talking about it is more your and Kris’s thing than mine.” So Claude shoves aside the guilt and smiles back.

Later, Claude will think back on Sid’s comment and remember the first time he realized it was true. A time that also signaled the beginning of him and Sid, and really the beginning of him and Sid and Claude.

It starts with a phone call. (Or it starts with a World Championship win. Or a playoffs loss. Or an entire season of fucking mediocrity. The possibilities are myriad, the outcome, Claude comes to feel, inevitable.)

But for simplicity’s sake, it starts with a phone call. One Claude does not want to make. But if you’ve been fucking and being fucked by a guy for three years, he figures you should have enough courtesy to let him know you’re double dipping in his company’s ink. So he parks himself on his living room couch, hunched over with his feet on the floor, and taps Kris’s name in his contacts list.

“I fucked Sid,” he says, almost before Kris says hello.

There’s a pause on the other end of the line and then, “Did you?”

“Yeah. At Worlds. After we won.” His mouth twists to the side. “Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” The question is unexpected, not part of the script Claude played out in his head before dialing, so he leans onto the back of the couch and thinks. The hell of it is, Claude isn’t sorry, really. He and Kris don’t have any kind of exclusive agreement. They play against each other four times a year, throw nasty chirps each other’s way, then they find each other afterward and fuck. Sometimes they talk after, chill out as they come down, but once they leave each other, they don’t speak, other than an odd text here or there, until the next game. It’s always fun, but it isn’t intimate, and it sure isn’t a relationship.

The fact that it’s Sid…that doesn’t really matter to Claude either. He feels more like he should feel guilty, but he can’t quite muster it. The reality is he wouldn’t take back fucking Sidney Crosby in a broom closet after a gold medal win for anything. Well. Maybe for the Cup. But only for the Cup.

Up until Claude actually had Sid in his arms, he hadn’t considered him in a sexual context (much—his ass is hard not to stare at). There was too much anger and bad-natured rivalry between them for him to indulge any of the nascent fantasies that tried to take root over the years. But playing together, connecting beautiful passes for even more beautiful goals, having him as captain and as team…Claude let his fantasies run wild in Prague. And the result was more than he could have hoped for. So yeah, he isn’t actually sorry.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “It feels like I should be. He’s your teammate, and we’re—”

“We’re?”

“I don’t know, fuck buddies or whatever.” Claude scrubs a hand over his face and scrunches forward on the couch again, tense and uncomfortable, Kris’s voice making him even more on edge. He can’t predict Kris’s moods, which usually vacillate between anger and charm, teasing and offended as easily has he changes direction on the ice. Claude likes it. It makes the sex different every time. But this carefully neutral tone he’s using right now is completely foreign to Claude. “I just felt like I should tell you.”

“I’m glad you did,” he says. “But I need to hear more.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you like it?”

“What, fucking him?”

Kris makes a low sound of agreement.

“Yeah?” Claude looks around his living room as if to have someone else to confirm the crazy turn this conversation has taken, but Harvey is back in Claude’s room napping so he has to handle it on his own.

“You don’t sound very sure.” And now his voice is silky almost, slow and soft with a hint of tease in it. Honestly, what the fuck.

“I don’t know, man. We were sweaty and covered in alcohol in a random broom closet. It felt good, but it was pretty gross.” It had been gross—sticky and sloppy and near-impossible, but Claude hadn’t noticed any of that at the time. All he’d felt was that he had a gold medal waiting for him and the best player on the ice on his knees in front of him. But looking back. Pretty gross. And even though Kris doesn’t seem angry, Claude still feels like he should be apologizing.

Kris lets out a soft chuckle, and, picking up on Claude’s discomfort, says, “It’s okay that you and Sid had a little fun. I assume you’ve slept with other people since we started fooling around?”

“No one else on your team. Not one of your best friends.”

“This is not a problem for me.”

“No?” Because Claude’s pretty sure it would be a problem for him if Kris, say, told him he hooked up with Danny. He’s always had a suspicion that Kris feels similarly about Sid to how Claude felt about Danny. Those days of embarrassing pining are over, thank God, but he still gets a twinge every now and then, and he would not be okay with Kris having any piece of what Claude never could.

“Non,” Kris says. “But if you feel bad and want to make it up to me, I have an idea.”

This makes Claude sit up straight. He does not trust Kris’s ideas. They usually involve him in weird positions or naked in strange places. But he always has a good time in the end, so he says, “Let’s hear it.”

“All right, but this one may make you a little uncomfortable, so tap out if you want.”

“You know I will.”

“I know. I like that about you. Are you alone in your house?”

“Yes.” And then, because he feels bad for forgetting, he adds, “Well, Harvey’s here. But he’s taking his nap in the bedroom.”

“Good, so he won’t mind,” Kris says, and Claude can barely hear the eye roll in his voice. “Now, I want you to relax, okay? You sound tense. Tell me when you’re comfortable.”

Claude rolls his eyes a little, but he leans back on the couch and props one leg up on the coffee table Then he thinks about it and decides that might be a precarious position for what he suspects will happen next so he swivels until he’s propped up against a pillow along the arm of the couch with his legs in front of him. He takes a few deep breaths and deliberately relaxes his muscles one by one. He can hear Kris shifting around on the other end of the line.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m comfortable.”

“Wonderful. Now take your cock out.”

Claude huffs a laugh. “Just right into it, aren’t you?”

“Did you want to tell me some more about how guilty you feel for doing something I’m not mad about?”

“No, shut up, I’m doing it.” He sets his phone beside him, switching it to speaker, and starts to pull down his basketball shorts, then stops and pulls off his t-shirt first. Might as well be prepared. Then he wiggles out of his shorts. A thought occurs to him, and he calls a brief “Hold on” as he jogs to the linen closet for a towel to lay down under him. Finally, he settles. “I’m ready.”

“Parfait. Now. Tell me about your time with Sid. I want to hear everything.”

And that, Claude had not been expecting. “Quelle?”

“I want to hear about it. It sounds exciting. And I want you to stroke your cock while you tell me.”

Claude purses his lips. This isn’t right. He shouldn’t talk about Sid like this without him knowing. He probably shouldn’t have said anything to Kris in the first place, but a few offhand comments he’d overheard between Sid and Nate made him think Sid was open about his sexuality with his friends, and Kris hadn’t seemed scandalized but, oh shit Claude probably fucked up—

“Claude.” Kris’s voice is firm and grounding, as if, once again, he’s picked up on Claude’s distress. Claude’s always appreciated that about him. Kris’s own moods are mercurial, but he’s always been sensitive to whenever Claude’s mood isn’t even. “It’s all right. I texted Sid while we were talking. He knows this is happening. He’s at the gym right now, but he says he’ll think about it later when he’s alone. Then he sent a winking emoticon, and I have tried to get him to use emojis, but he is hopeless.”

“What?” Claude squeaks in English this time. Kris laughs at him, not unkindly.

“You and I have fun together. Sid and I have fun together sometimes too.” The only word Claude knows anymore—what? “Now I want to hear how you and Sid had fun together. It’s like a circle.”

“I don’t—”

“Claude,” Kris stops his protest. “This will be fun, I promise. If you don’t want to do it, we won’t. You just have to say so. But I think you’ll like it. You’re always whispering to me during sex, telling me how much you love my body and how good everything feels. This is almost the same. Except you’re telling me how good Sid feels, how much you love his body. And you’ll touch yourself, while I touch myself. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

It does. God, it does. Claude’s dick, which had fallen completely flaccid during his earlier panic, perks up at Kris’s words. He gives himself a tentative stroke and thinks Yeah, this will be fun.

“I’m in,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

“Good. Now tell me what happened.”

So Claude does. He takes Kris’s wish to hear everything to heart and starts at the beginning. Tells him how Nate had dragged them around together during breaks between practice and games. How it was awkward at first but their hockey had gotten so good, so hot, that the chemistry translated off the ice. Mostly silent outings with only Nate to carry the conversation turned into subtle flirtations, sly innuendos thrown at each other, but sailing over Nate’s head (or under, rather, the kid was so tall). Claude didn’t know until Prague that Sid liked to touch. He’s laughed enough over that video of him pulling away from Toews after Canada’s Olympics win. But in Prague, after the first few days, Sid always had a hand on Claude’s arm when he was trying to make a point, or a knee pressed against his own while they ate dinner with the team.

“Sid loves that,” Kris says, breaking Claude out of his memory of a particular night before a game when they’d been playing Chel in somebody’s hotel room and Sid’s entire side had been pressed against him the whole night, jostling him every time it was his turn to play. He could smell the sweat that still lingered on Sid’s body even after his shower. Claude had gone back to his room and jerked one out quick and fast with his back against the closed door. “He loves being close. He doesn’t like big gestures so much, but he likes to know you’re there.”

Claude flushes at the intimacy of the revelation and realizes he’s gotten off track. “I’m sorry, I’m supposed to be telling you about the sex. I forgot.” He hadn’t even been stroking himself as instructed, but just holding his dick as if it was some sort of comfort blanket.

“No, c’est bon,” Kris says, and Claude can hear the smile in his voice. He almost sounds fond, and Claude doesn’t know if the fondness is for him or for Sid. He doesn’t really want to consider what it means if it’s for him. “I like hearing this part too. Though my cock is yelling at me now that he would like us to skip to the good part.”

“Your dick talks to you?”

“Only when he’s cranky. Impatient thing,” he scolds.

“Such a weirdo,” Claude says, but he’s smiling. “Okay, tell your dick to listen up, I’m getting to the good stuff.”

The good stuff started with a loaded look across the locker room as they sat at their respective stalls covered in champagne and beer, chests still heaving from the exertion of the game and the euphoria of the win. Sid glanced quickly around the room to see who was paying attention, and then back to Claude with a smirk. He reached between his legs and subtly—or as subtly as one can do such a thing—palmed his dick, then cut his eyes to the door.

Claude’s endorphin-filled brain didn’t even need time to consider before he nodded, and followed Sid out of the room a discreet minute later. They made their way to a closet in the belly of the arena, and as soon as the door closed, they were on each other. Sid sucked his neck, whispered in his ear how good he was on the ice, how much he loved playing with him. He doesn’t say this aloud to Kris, but those words were like a balm to the small, secret part of Claude that had always wanted Sid to acknowledge his abilities.

He does tell Claude how Sid tugged his own pants down to his thighs before turning around and offering himself up for Claude. Claude licked his fingers and pushed in, but it was too dry and they had nothing to use as lube.

“I tried to tell him it wouldn’t work, but he practically begged me. Said he could handle it. But I didn’t want to hurt him.”

“That’s good,” Kris says, his voice warm with arousal and a hint of approval that makes Claude shiver, a reaction he files away to unpack later. “Sid likes it like that sometimes, so it hurts a little. But he forgets that it’s not always the time or place for that.”

“Yeah, and it definitely wasn’t there or then. So then he wanted me to fuck between his thighs.”

“And how did that work out without the lube? Don’t forget to play with your balls.”

The instruction startles Claude, but he does as he’s told and reaches under his dick to roll his balls between his fingers. His breath is coming fast now, and it’s harder to talk, but he likes that he has to struggle for coherency, that the split of his concentration between talking and masturbating prolongs the pleasure. “It didn’t work well,” he says. “It was awkward and a little terrible. I tried to tell him, and at first he was frustrated. But then he just laughed. Next thing I know, he’s on his knees and sucking me off like nobody’s business. Jerking himself off at the same time. It was one of the hottest things I’d ever seen.”

Claude closes his eyes, remembering the way Sid looked up at him just before he put his mouth on his dick. Gave him the biggest shit-eating grin before sucking his entire shaft into his mouth. Claude had felt the muscles of his throat relax around the head and sent up a desperate prayer of thanks to whoever was listening that he didn’t come right then and there.

“Did he come when you did?” Kris’s voice has turned sharp, and Claude’s eyes snap open at the change in tone. He doesn’t have to think hard to remember the answer, because the moment had struck him at the time as unusual.

“No. He came after me. I remember because I came and he swallowed it all down—” Claude pauses, grips the base of his dick to calm himself down. When he’s sure he’s not going to shoot, he continues, “He swallowed it all down and looks up at me, still jerking himself. He says ‘Please, please.’ And I didn’t know what he wanted so I just said ‘Come on, Sid,’ and he shot off like a rocket. Got it all over himself and me.”

On the other end of the line, Kris groans. “How did that feel?” he says, slightly out of breath. Claude’s gratified to hear his meager storytelling abilities are doing something for him. But he’s so close now, teetering just on the edge of orgasm, and he can’t understand the question.

“How did what feel?”

“Having him come at your command.”

That’s…Claude had not thought about it in that way. That must have been why Sid said “please”—because he wanted Claude’s permission. It’s not something Claude’s ever been into before. Every now and then Kris will try to tell him he can’t come, but that’s usually when Claude’s feeling antagonistic after the game so he simply tells Kris to fuck off, he’ll come when he wants. But everything in that closet with Sid, even the awkward moments, had felt surreal and amazing. So he says through gritted teeth, “It felt really fucking good,” and comes on a groan.

“Oh my God,” he says when he’s coherent again. Kris laughs at him. “Did you come?”

“I did, while you were telling me about Sid begging you to come. You paint a beautiful picture.”

Claude smiles a little at the lie and covers his eyes with his arm. He’s spent, but the blissed out feeling is starting to leave him and a tiny kernel of panic at what just happened and what it could mean starts to work its way into his brain. He and Kris say goodbye, and he looks over to see Harvey’s wandered into the room, ready for his post-nap walk. Claude cleans up, then snaps Harvey’s leash on. As they get ready to walk out the door, Claude looks down at his sweet, oblivious dog and says, “What the fuck?”

 

* * *

**Part Two**

Later, Sid won’t recall what prompted him to contact Claude that first summer. He’s traveling, lonely, a little out of sorts over the playoff loss despite his newly minted spot in the Triple Gold Club. But he’s got Tanger, Flower, and Taylor to share record of his travels with. He doesn’t need to send a former-rival-turned-teammate-turned-temporary-fuck-buddy a snap of two soccer players playing keep away in Rome, even if it does remind of the afternoon he and Claude watched a couple of hotel employees kick a ball round while on break. Claude definitely doesn’t need to see the massive slice of cheesecake he gets in Florence, even if he and Nate had joined Sid for an unsuccessful hour-long quest for a slice around Prague one night between games. Everyone should see the beauty of Venice canals, so no one can blame Sid for sending that one. By his logic, if he confines the pictures to Snapchat, then he knows (hopes) Claude will assume he’s sending them to a selection of his contact list, not just to him. That’s probably the case, since he never responds. Not that Sid was waiting for a response.

But Sid can’t pretend that the dick pic he snaps to Claude from his hotel bed in Switzerland will be misinterpreted. And he’s not disappointed when a notification immediately pops up that Claude is typing. And typing. And typing. Just as Sid starts to worry that he made a huge mistake and is about to get severely roasted, the message comes through: I’m more of an ass man. Sid stares at it for a solid minute before he cracks up. Sid has ass to spare, and if Claude thinks he won’t rise to the occasion, so to speak, he’s absolutely wrong.

Already completely naked, Sid makes his way to the room’s full length mirror. It takes a few adjustments of his limited lighting options and several trial poses before he finally he gets a picture he’s satisfied with. Now he knows why action movie posters always have the women turned at such impossible angles. He’s got his ass on fine display while he’s able to turn his head to the mirror and give what he thinks is a decently sexy look. He captions the photo “got you covered” and presses send before he can think more about it.

The only response he gets is a notification that two screen shots have been taken—one for each of his last two snaps. He snorts, but can’t keep the pleased smile from his face.

Later, his phone buzzes with an incoming text, and he’s shocked to see it’s from Claude. It reads I guess I know where all that cheesecake goes now. Next time you have a slice, thank it for me.

After that, it’s like the text message floodgates have opened. Claude texts him about his dog, who found a new playmate during their walks and pined for him when they got back home. Sid texts him about the street vendor who convinced him to buy five pashmina shawls for the two women in his family. Claude hates the new place his trainer takes him to work out. Sid gets lost for three hours in Athens and receives a running stream of insulting commentary from Claude about it.

Aside from Sid’s two provocative snaps, they only send G-rated messages to each other about their lives. Which, to Sid, feels more dangerous than the alternative. But he doesn’t stop.

* * *

  
Sid’s last stop on his vacation before he heads back to Cole Harbor is Santorini. As he unpacks in his beachside villa, a shiver of anticipation runs through him. Kris arrives any minute. They haven’t seen each other since April, and while Sid has gone without a good working over for longer periods than this, he feels desperate for it. The weird thing with Claude at Worlds, hearing about his and Kris’s phone conversation, the texting they’ve been doing back and forth—it’s an unknown. Not bad, but Sid doesn’t do well with unknowns and he’s been on edge from it, which he hates. The only person ever able to take that edge off has been Kris. And speak of the devil—

“Knock, knock.” Kris stands in the door of Sid’s bedroom, the sunlight from the wall of windows shining on him, making him even more impossibly beautiful. Sid grins and walks over to pull him into a tight hug. His grip must be a little desperate because Kris makes soothing sounds in his ear. “I’m here, I’m here now,” he says, voice gentle, and Sid can feel his body begin to settle.

“It’s good to see you, man.” He pulls back, but keeps his hands on Kris’s shoulders.

“Sid, you look good, my friend. Tan and fit and delicious.”

“So do you.” His cheeks pinken from the praise. “You always look good.”

Kris smiles warmly and tugs Sid closer. “I missed you.”

Sid gives his shoulders a squeeze, then disengages to clear off the bed from his packing, trying not to be too pleased with the declaration. He’s missed Kris too, and it’s thrown him for a loop. They’ve always been good friends. And sex with Kris has always reached a part of Sid that no one else has been able to reach. A part that longs to be taken care of, to be relieved of control. But they’ve never made a connection between those two distinct sides of their relationship.

Now, though, something has changed, and Sid can’t put his finger on what.

Kris moves behind him as he’s bent over gathering clothes, runs a firm hand up his spine. Sid stills, and his headspace instantly shifts. He waits, already feeling the blood rush to his dick, as Kris grips the back of his neck.

“You look good, Sid. But you seem…edgy.” Pleasure washes over him. He knew. He knew Kris would recognize his need. Would be there to take care of him. His muscles want to go limp, but he’s good, so he holds himself in position.

“Yeah,” he breathes.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not right now, no.”

“What do you want to do right now?”

Kris likes to be in control. Likes to tie Sid up, deny his orgasms. Come in his face, then feed him the come by hand. Strike him while he’s bent over whatever piece of furniture is closest. One time he even made Sid drink so much water his bladder was full to bursting and wouldn’t let him pee until he’d made Kris come just by licking the head of dick. Couldn’t even suck on it. It took forever, and finally going had felt like an orgasm in itself. But no matter what they do, Kris always, always asks what he wants first, and it always reminds Sid what a good Dom he is.

He doesn’t have to think much because he’s been planning out the specifics since he woke up this morning. “I want it rough. You can hit me anywhere you want, but bruises only where no one can see when we’re on the beach. I don’t want you to be nice. I don’t want to feel anything. I’ve—I’ve—”

“What is it, Sid?” Kris moves his hand from the grip on Sid’s neck to run it over his hair. Sid sinks down, almost buckles under the weight of the concern in Kris’s voice. Kris must sense it because he places his hand back on Sid’s neck. “Take your time,” he says.

This isn’t routine, this concern. When Kris is playing the role of Dominant, he always checks in with Sid, asks him what he wants, how he’s feeling. But this isn’t that. Kris dropped the scene and went back to being Sid’s friend. But when they’re friends, they laugh and joke and take nothing seriously. They certainly don’t talk about feelings. And Sid doesn’t want to start right before a scene, so he says, “I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m confused about some things, maybe. I want to not think for a while. And if you’re too nice, I’ll get emotional.” He takes a breath. “Given those parameters, I’m fine with you choosing what we do.”

The wait for Kris’s response is agonizing with Sid now half in and half out of his headspace. But finally, finally he squeezes Sid’s neck and says “Good.” Kris jerks him up by his hair. “Then let’s begin.”

Relief courses through Sid’s body and he gives himself over to the scene. 

* * *

 

The next day, Sid and Kris make it to the beach by midday. They spent the entire day before in bed, but Sid insisted they couldn’t do that again. So they worked out and went to breakfast where they blissfully gossiped about the team and talked about nothing serious at all. Then they gathered towels and sunscreen and found the perfect spot to nap as a cool breeze blew up from the ocean. Sid’s on his stomach, not quite asleep when he hears his phone buzz and Kris rustling around to find it.

“Leave it,” he mumbles. “Nap time.” Kris laughs and Sid turns his head to smile up at him. Kris runs his hand down his cheek, and Sid leans into it. Like the concern of yesterday, the affection is new too. Sid isn’t sure if something has changed for Kris the way it’s also changing for him. Or if it’s being together in a foreign country with no one around who knows them or cares what they do. In Pittsburgh, they’ve been friendly in public and in private, except when they’re hooking up, so that they don’t slip. But here, it doesn’t matter.

The phone buzzes again, and this time Kris does snag it from the sand-proof basket where it’s resting. “Someone’s blowing up,” he says, glancing at the screen. His eye brows shoot up.

“Who is it?”

Kris eyes him suspiciously. “Have you been texting with Claude?”

Sid can feel the blood rush to his cheeks. “Um.”

“Sid!” Kris is gleeful now. “Have you been sexting with Claude?”

“What?! No!” Sid sits up, tries to grab his phone, but Kris holds it away. Something ugly and guilty that he doesn’t understand pools in his gut.

“Don’t lie, you dirty motherfucker. You’ve been sexting with Claude Giroux.”

“I have not. Give me my phone.” He lunges forward.

“Non.” Kris shoves him back. “What have you been saying? Do you think he’s sending you sexy texts right now?” He clicks the phone so the notifications appear. Thankfully Sid’s phone is set not to display preview text.

“Give me my phone, asshole.” Sid darts his hand out once more, but Kris anticipates, grabs it, and holds. The playful look is gone now, and he studies Sid speculatively.

“Is this why you’ve been feeling out of sorts?”

Sid drops back, the fight leaving him. He hadn’t made that connection. Hadn’t thought until this moment that this…thing…with Claude was making him feel any kind of way. But now that it’s out there, it makes perfect sense. The last thing he wants to do is to unpack it with Kris, but he thinks maybe that Kris is part of it.

He’s never shied away from hard things, so he says, “Maybe. I think so.”

“Why? Is he giving you trouble?”

“No. He’s—we’re really not sexting.” Sid’s embarrassed to even use that word. “We’re just talking. And that’s been. Really great.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“I don’t know.” Sid gazes out over the ocean and licks his lips, searching for the words. “I guess it feels. It feels disloyal.”

“To who? The team?”

“No.”

“To me?” Sid’s eyes cut back to Kris’s.

“Yeah.” He holds his breath and looks away again, waiting for Kris’s reaction. He has no idea what it will be.

“Sid, look at me.” Kris tugs on his arm. But he can’t bring himself to do it. “Sid.” He repeats himself, but this time he imbues the word with command, and Sid has never been able to resist that. He looks back.

“This doesn’t make me angry. I’m glad you’re becoming closer with Claude. I like Claude.”

“I know, but I don’t want it to ruin things between us.”

Kris mulls that over. “Do you think it will? Do you want to see him and not me?”

“No!” Sid doesn’t even have to think about that. What he gets with Kris, he already knows he won’t get with Claude. But he doesn’t know if he can be Kris’s submissive and his friend, but nothing else, while wanting to be something else with Claude. That’s the source of the roiling in his stomach.

“I’m going to tell you something, Sid. I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

“Okay.”

“I have feelings for Claude, too.”

“You do?” That is unexpected. Sid knew Kris and Claude had a thing. It seemed more based on mutual need to release pent up energy after their intense games, but he’d never thought about it much.

“I have for a long time. I also have feelings for you. And I know you don’t have them back,” he says in a rush. “I know that. But I think you could, given the right circumstances, the right mindset. We’re always fighting against intimacy because we don’t want it to screw up the team dynamics. I think we should say fuck team dynamics and try to make this work.”

“We can’t say—”

“I think we can. We can at least try.”

Sid stands up abruptly and walks toward the ocean. This is too much to process at once. When he gets to the edge, he stares out and doesn’t think at all, lets his subconscious take over. He must stand there for 10 minutes not thinking before he turns and heads back to Kris, patiently waiting on his towel with his arms wrapped around his knees. He looks oddly vulnerable, and Sid responds to that more than anything.

“We can at least try,” he says, and the smile that breaks over Kris’s face is beautiful. “But what about Claude? I don’t think that’s going away for me.”

“Don’t worry about that. It may take a little while, but I have a plan.”

 

* * *

 

**Part Three**

Later, Kris will viciously berate himself for executing his brilliant idea the way he did. He knows, as a Dominant and as an enlightened adult human, how important communication and setting expectations in relationships are, even if that relationship is a little off-center. Especially if that relationship is off-center.

Later, Kris will see his failure in the hollow of Sid’s eyes as he declines yet again to come over to Kris’s house to scene, something Kris knows by the tightness of his mouth and the tenseness of his shoulders that he desperately needs. He will see his failure in the silence on the other side as he knocks on Claude’s door after the first game of the season against the Flyers.

Later, he will feel in his heart that he was only a means to an end for those who meant the most to him. That the visions for a future were his creations, shared by no one other than himself. That the affection and—and the love he thought were his were just figments.

But in the beginning, everything goes beautifully.

Kris is somewhat ashamed of himself that Sid and Claude figure out they might like each other before Kris puts it together. It would have solved a lot of his problems if he’d picked up on the possibility sooner than three years after he and Claude first started hooking up, and four years after he and Sid discovered their highly compatible proclivities in a sex club in New York. Might have saved him some heartache along the way.

Not that he has much to complain about. He likes his relationships with each of them fine. The sex is fantastic. Sid lets him take control, and Claude fights back. But he’s missed the deep connection of a true relationship. He’s tried to find it outside of them, has devoted himself to one person for a month or two here and there over the years. But he always, always comes back to Sid and Claude.

He used to be frustrated with their sex-only arrangements, enough to try to switch up the dynamics. He would ask Sid on date after date, only to find that Sid had invited Flower or Geno or fucking rookies along to make them group outings. He thought at first that Sid was trying to avoid being alone with him, and that stung. But he eventually figured out that Sid had no idea they were dates, which hurt in a different way.

So he concentrated on Claude,who had no reason to like him outside of the sex, but who at least had more emotional intelligence than the good captain. Kris sent him texts every now and then to feel the situation out. And Claude always responded for a couple of days, then faded out of contact under the stress and busy-ness of the season.

But he sees new opportunity when Claude calls him to confess his extracurricular activities with Sid. And when he learns that Sid is making an actual effort to be friends with Claude, that he might actually have feelings with Claude he decides one final time to change things.

After Greece, after Kris revealed his plan, they went their separate ways for the summer. Kris doesn’t know if Sid stayed in touch with Claude, if he told him anything about what Kris said. But Kris texts Claude more than normal. And this summer, Claude actually responds every time. Kris can read in his texts that he’s happy. He wonders if it’s because of Sid. The thought makes him smile. He doesn’t mention the plan to Claude, thinks it will be better in person. So he goes home, sees his family, and waits.

After the first game against the Flyers at home, Kris is vibrating with anticipation. He and Claude played particularly, gloriously rough against each other and he knows he won’t get his normal release tonight, but he can’t even be frustrated about it. Sid sits next to him at his dining room table, holding his hand as if he could possibly contain Kris’s energy, while they wait for the knock on the door.

When it comes, Kris doesn’t race to open it, but it’s a near thing. Sid crowds behind him, gratifyingly eager as well. He opens the door with a smile, only to find a dejected Claude on his door step.

“What’s wrong?”

Claude smiles a little, but it’s unhappy. “You always know, don’t you?”

Kris can feel Sid move from his back, unseen by Claude. He looks behind him and Sid’s gone further into the front hallway, perhaps to give them privacy.

“Tell me, let me help. Is it just the game?”

“No, fuck.” Claude runs his hands over his face, tilts his head back and keeps them there. “I don’t think I can see you anymore,” he says in a rush.

Kris wasn’t expecting that. This could ruin all his plans. He steps outside, right into Claude’s space, and pulls his hands down.

“I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I should have told you before now, but I wanted to do it in person.”

“I appreciate that. Can you tell me why?”

“Yeah but it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Try,” Kris says, his voice tight. Claude flinches at it.

“I’m just…I think I like Sid.” If possible, the confession makes him look even more miserable, but Kris feels a tendril of hope creep back in. “We’ve been talking so much this summer, and I want to sleep with him again. I can’t stop thinking about it. But I don’t want to give this up with you either. So I think I’m just going to have to tell him we have to stop talking, and now I’m telling you we have to stop fucking, and it all sucks and what the fuck are you smiling at?”

“Claude, my friend, come inside. I have a visitor here and I think you might like what we have to say.”

And thus begins an entire season that marks the best time of Kris’s life up until that point. A season filled with three-way Skype sex, early morning and late night flights when all three of them have a string of off days. They’ll meet in one city, hole up for hours talking and fucking and laughing. He and Sid invite Claude to scene with them. Kris always imagined him to take on a more Dominant role, but he has seen submissive sides of him, and so the possibilities, in his mind, are endless. Claude never really warms up to it, though. So he confines that side of himself to when he and Sid are alone together.

Sid assigns them all articles and books to read on how to have a successful polyamorous relationship, and so they know that their relationships with each other will grow in different ways. They each try to spend one-on-one “couple time” with each other in their various combinations. But Kris’s favorite time is when they’re together.

After their second game against each other of the season, they pile into Claude’s car and he drives them home. Sid and Kris have permission from management to find their own way home in the morning, as long as they make it back before the team leaves for Vancouver.

“I had food delivered earlier today, so we should have plenty to eat,” Claude says as they make their way in through the garage. But they’d already snagged food after the game at the arena so none of them move immediately to the kitchen. Sid and Kris are riding high off the win, but Kris can see the tense set of Claude’s mouth so he swings him into a kiss.

“That can wait, mon chou. Why don’t we play a little first?”

Claude kisses back, then tilts his head at Sid. “I don’t know how I was ever convinced to have sex with anyone who wears fucking yellow crocs.”

“Oh fuck you,” Sid says, but he’s grinning. “Race you upstairs!” he yells, and sets off. Claude dashes after, immediately calling out the unfairness. Kris follows more slowly, glad to have everyone together.

In the bedroom, they strip and move together to the bed. Kris usually directs them, and tonight is no different. He wants to try a new breathplay move with Sid that he’s been practicing. Claude will watch at first, as an added measure of safety, and then, when Sid is a little dizzy, completely pliant, Claude will suck him off while Kris jacks himself off onto Sid’s chest. He tells them the plan and Sid nods eagerly. Claude take a little more persuading, but eventually gets into it. Claude always needs a little push when things venture too close to BDSM territory. But he always has a good time. Tonight is no different. And in the morning, as they breakfast together, Sid chatting away about their upcoming games, and Claude quietly listening, Kris thinks how happy he is.

Yes, in the beginning, it’s more beautiful than he could imagine. It’s not until it’s over that Kris can look back and see the cracks.

* * *

**Part Four**

“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Claude is as surprised as the two other people in bed with him at his outburst. He hadn’t planned on bringing up his dissatisfaction with the current state of his relationship when Sid’s arms were tied to their headboard and Kris was deep throating him while Claude watched. But Sid had reached for his hand, and the small, intimate gesture in the midst of the intense scene had dragged it out of him.

And now Kris and Sid are staring at him with wide eyes. Claude wants to laugh because Sid tries to turn his head toward him but he’s stopped by Kris’s dick, and when he tries to pull away he gets stopped by the headboard. He ends up with a face full of penis before Kris realizes what’s happening and moves away. He wants to laugh but his gut is churning and he can’t catch his breath.

Sid sees his distress and, ever the captain, takes charge of the situation. “Why don’t we get dressed and talk about this downstairs? And can someone untie me please?” Kris, always so careful with aftercare, makes a distressed noise and quickly unties one wrist while Claude gently undoes the other. He mechanically puts his clothes back on—a white undershirt and basketball shorts he’d been wearing as they’d watched movies earlier, no thought in his head of doing this tonight.

When they’re all arranged at the kitchen table and Kris has passed out bottles of Gatorade—Claude would have preferred whiskey for this conversation, but Gatorade is probably smarter—Claude loses his words. His two…boyfriends? Partners? Lovers? He’s never known what to call them, which is part of the problem…Sid and Kris are staring at him again, waiting for him to speak. But his impulsiveness is biting him in the ass right now because he did not prepare for this.

But again, Sid comes to his rescue. “Why don’t we start with this: What specifically can’t you do anymore? Were you talking about the sex tonight? Or did you mean our relationship?” His voice falters on “relationship” and Claude flinches. “Or did you mean something else entirely?”

“I meant…I meant this relationship.” Kris whispers fuck and buries his head in his hands. But now that he’s started, Claude doesn’t want to stop. “I don’t feel like I can be part of this relationship in the way that you both want.”

“You mean the dynamic between me and Kris in the bedroom?” Sid’s eyes are sharp on him, and Claude searches for his words carefully. Even if he wasn’t prepared to end this tonight, he’s been thinking about it for weeks, maybe months, and he won’t let Sid twist things until they fit the way he wants them.

“That’s part of it. What you guys are into, it’s not me. I don’t know how I fit into it, or if I even can.”

“That’s bullshit! We always include you.” Kris’s head is up again, his eyes blazing.

“I’m not saying you don’t. But I don’t want to be included. I want to be…there from the beginning. I want to be considered when you’re planning a scene or whatever. Not just brought in after the fact because I’m here.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. We never meant to make you feel like an afterthought. We can work on that.” Sid speaks calmly, logically. But his hands are clenched together on the table, knuckles white.

“I don’t know if you can. I don’t know if I want you to. Because it’s not just the sex. It’s the fact that you guys are together most of the year, and I barely get to see you during the season. You’re in a relationship when I’m not around, and when we are together, I always feel like I’m trying to play catch up.”

“That’s just such fucking bullshit.”

“Kris,” Sid chides, but doesn’t look away from Claude.

Claude doesn’t want to be having this conversation anymore. He can’t see a way forward, and now that he’s started the process, he just wants out.

“I’ve made up my mind. I’m done. I’ll start clearing out tomorrow.” He can’t look at them, can’t see the anger in Kris’s eyes or the studied calm in Sid’s, so he stares at his hands on the table. He hears the front door slam.

“Well. Kris is gone. I’m going to bed. I assume you’ll stay in your room tonight.” When they’d rented the luxury cabin for the summer, they’d made sure they each had their own rooms, plus a master room for when they were together. At the time, it’d seemed like a waste because they were always together, but now Claude is thankful he has a space to retreat to. He nods without looking up and waits until he hears Sid climb the stairs before heading to his room.

* * *

 

Claude spends the next morning making arrangements. Books a flight to LA where his trainer is, secures a place to stay, and calls his parents to let them know about his change in plans. Kris doesn’t come home, and he tries not to worry. Sid avoids him, and while Kris’s dramatics aren’t unexpected, Sid’s reticence is. Claude had figured Sid would, in that calm, implacable way of his, try to wear him down with logical arguments and plans for addressing the issues. Instead, Sid stays in his room with his door closed, only emerging when Claude knocks and says “I’ve got a car coming in 10 minutes.”

“Do you need help getting your stuff outside?” Sid won’t meet his eyes.

“I’ve got it.”

“Ok, well. I’ll leave you to it then.” He moves to go back in his room, but Claude reaches out for him. He doesn’t touch, because he sees it won’t be welcome, but Sid stops anyway.

“Sid. I’m sorry it happened like this.”

“How could it have happened better?”

“For one, none of us would’ve been naked.” Claude tries to laugh. The sound is ugly, and Sid remains unmoved.

“How long had you been planning it?”

He doesn’t know what to say. Before the season ended, he suspected he’d be ending things on this trip. Months before that he’d started to consider it in earnest. But if he’s honest with himself, he’s known since the beginning this wouldn’t last. Sid seems to read this on his face, because his mouth twists. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll—see you on the ice, I guess.” He retreats to his room.

Claude’s phone rings, startling him, and he lets the driver knows he’ll be outside. He gathers his suitcase, gear bag, and laptop, and leaves. In the car, he texts Kris to let him know he’s gone. He doesn’t get a response.

* * *

 

The new season rolls around and the closer the PIT/PHI game came, the more agitated Claude got. He hadn’t heard from either Kris or Sid all summer, and he hadn’t reached out either. Unless you counted a few drunken messages to their group text. Which Claude did not, and apparently neither did they since neither of them responded. But after the game, he’s not surprised to hear a knock on his hotel room door. He is surprised at who is on the other side.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“No?”

“I thought it would be Sid.” A complicated look passes over Kris’s face.

“Well, you got me instead. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Claude steps back and opens the door wider. “Come in.”

“Look, I’ll make this quick. We’re miserable without you, man. We want you back. We can work this out.”

“Kris—”

“No, hear me out. I didn’t say much when you broke up with us. I didn’t handle it well. And I hated the way you did it. I know you aren’t into what me and Sid are into, but you can’t…you can’t fuck with scenes like that. Sid hasn’t been able—Sid’s been messed up about it. I’ve been messed up about it.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll talk to Sid, too. It was fucked up, and I’ve regretted it ever since.”

Kris gives a hard nod. “Good.”

“But I stand by what I said that night.”

“I know you do, but you what you said was bullshit. I’m not saying you didn’t feel that way, but you were putting all these feelings on me and Sid that weren’t true. You didn’t even talk to us about it before things got bad. You just left. We had no idea you were feeling that way, and we would have fixed it.”

“But that’s it—I don’t think you can. You’re over here now and everything you’re saying is ‘we, we, we.’ You’re speaking for you and Sid I’m never included in the ‘we.’”

“You can’t be included in the ‘we’ right now, because you ran away!”

“Kris.”

“I’m not speaking for me and Sid right now. Sid doesn’t know I’m here, and we don’t talk about you. I’m speaking for me and what I know to be true about our relationship. Sid might say something different, but I doubt it. And either way, Sid and I aren’t together, so I actually shouldn’t be saying ‘we.’”

“Wait, what?”

“What, you thought Sid and I were still in a relationship?”

“Well yeah.”

“You’re such an idiot. If you’d talked to us, you’d know this already. The relationship was the three of us. Sure, Sid and I fucked before this. But so did you and I, and so did you and Sid. We were a triangle of fuck buddies. But when we were all together, it was more than that. We had a connection, a future. Without all three of us, it just goes back to being fuck buddies. And we’re not really up for that right now. If you didn’t realize, both of us just had our hearts broken.”

Claude’s so startled at this revelation, he can’t speak.

“I’m gonna go. Think it over, yeah? We want you back. We’ll do whatever we need to do to make it work.”

Claude shakes his head. He can’t handle this right now. He wasn’t expecting any of this, and it’s too much for him to process. Kris takes his hand, squeezes it.

“I hate that we made you feel as if you weren’t our partner.” Kris has been angry, defiant, sarcastic—but now all Claude can see is sorrow. He nods. He believes him.

With that, Kris is gone, and Claude is left to deal with these revelations on his own.

* * *

When later finally comes, it comes at the All Star Game, of all places. In a shitty hotel room in LA, where Kris and Claude aren't even supposed to be. But it's Sid who called them there. When Kris went nuclear at Claude's defection, and Claude went silent, Sid had gone to work. He'd reread all the articles on polyamory. He'd gone back over every conversation he'd had with Kris and Claude, together and separately, to see what fucked up. He'd even reached out to Wayne Simmonds of all people to get a read on how Claude was doing. (He can see for himself just how Not Well Kris is doing.) Then he mapped out a plan for moving forward. Because he is miserable and tired of being miserable. So he buys their tickets and ensures he has the biggest suite with the biggest bed in the hotel, even if he does feel like the biggest asshole requesting it, plus back up rooms in case it all goes wrong. 

They arrive at the same time, and Sid invites them in. He sits them down on the bed next to each other. And even though he has the emotional range of a goldfish, or so Flower always tells him, he draws up all his courage and says, "I want to try again. We fucked up before. All of us. But I've never been happier than when I'm with the two of you. Separately and together. And I think you feel the same. So what do you say?" 

He reaches his hands out to both of them. Terrified of what will happen, he wants to close his eyes as he waits for them to reach back. But both of them smile. And both of them reach back. 


End file.
